Il modernismo e le arti Three years ago in Paris I got out of a metro train at La Concorde, and saw suddenly a beautiful face, and then another and another, and then a beautiful childs face, and then another beautiful woman, and I tried all that day to find words for what this had meant to me, and I could not find any words that seemed to me worthy, or as lovely as that sudden emotion. And that evening, as I went home along the Rue Raynourd, I was still trying and I found, suddenly, the expression. I do not mean that I found words, but there came an equation … not in speech, but in little splotches of colour. It was just that – a pattern, or hardly a pattern, if by pattern you mean something you repeatin it. But it was a word, the beginning for me of a language in colour. Ezra Pound, Vorticism, Fortnightly Review, 1 Sept The apparition of these faces in the crowd;/Petals on a wet, black bough. Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro
Monet, Impression. Sunrise
Impressionism 1874: Monet, Impression. Sunrise Main representatives: Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro : Eight Exhibitions Transcription of visual reality as it affected the retina of the painter within a discrete, short period of time To capture the effect of light and colour in an instant of time
Impressionism2 Connection with contemporary writing and thinking about photography Connection with Naturalism Recognition of the subjectivity of the act of representational transcription Impressionism fetishized the role of the subjective perception in the act of representation This aesthetic decision was to revolutionize, and define modern art
Impressionism – techniques Short thick strokes of paint Colours applied side-by-side Colours mix in the eye of the viewer Emphasis on the play of natural light Painting en plein air
Monet Monet, Haystacks
Impressionism in England Paul Durand-Ruel: French art dealer. He organized exhibitions of Impressionism in England London: 11 exhibitions between 1870 and – Exhibition at the Downdeswell Galleries Exhibition at the Grafton Galleries
Neo-impressionismo or Scientific Impressionism Georges Seurat Painting based on the conscious and rigorous application of contemporary scientific theories on light and human perception Painting reduced to its smallest elements – the molecule or dot Works composed of discrete dots or points of colour hence the name of pointillisme or divisionism
Neoimpressionism Georges Seurat, A Summer Sunday at the Grande Jatte, 1884
Post-impressionism Term coined by Roger Fry in 1906 Gauguin, Cézanne, Seurat, and Van Gogh a conscious departure from what these artists considered the narrowly optical art of impressionism
Cubism Pablo Picasso, Les Damoiselles dAvignon, 1907
Cubism Founders: Pablo Picasso ( ), Georges Braque ( ) Break with the principle of one point perspective Attempt to render the three-dimensionality of an object in the two dimensions of the canvas No fixed, single perspective Collage technique
Cubism 2 Main phases Analytical Cubism: objects reduced to their geometrical structures, monochromatic paintings in order to capture the essential qualities of the pictured object 1912 onwards Synthetic Cubism: practice of collage, elements of popular culture (wall- paper, posters, theatre tickets etc.), emphasis on the artificiality of the image
Pablo Picasso, Ritratto di Ambroise Vollard
Futurismo Giacomo Balla, Volo di una rondine
Futurismo Giacomo Balla, Volo di rondini
Futurism Marinetti published Il Manifesto del Futurismo – Le Figaro 20 February 1909 Manifesto dei Pittori Futuristi - 11 February 1910 (Boccioni, Balla, Carrà, Russolo, Severini) Manifesto Tecnico della Pittura Futurista - 11 April 1910 (Boccioni, Balla, Carrà, Russolo, Severini)
Futurism 2 Enthusiasm for modernity Motion Simultaneity Technology Speed City Beauty of the machine
Futurismo Giacomo Balla, Dinamismo di un cane al guinzaglio
Futurismo Umberto Boccioni, La città sale